Sacrifice by Denise Grover Swank Page B

unprecedented. You never loved your protector before.”
    “From what you said, me not picking either of you was unprecedented. The whole thing is unprecedented.”
    “Very true. Also unprecedented was the length of time for you to prepare. You were usually given months to remember. This time was a month and a half. Then again, there was nothing for you to remember. Honestly, it’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed.”
    “You already said that.”
    “It doesn’t make it any less true.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “It means the world has tilted off its axis.”
    She grimaced. “Very funny.”
    “The world may not have literally tilted but the rules of everything have changed. It’s anyone’s guess what happens now.”
    Maybe so, but she’d do her best to make sure it wasn’t left up to chance.

 
     
    Chapter Six
     

     
    “Again.”
    Emma stood in the field, hanging over her bent knees. “In a minute.”
    Raphael watched her, his arms crossed. “No. Now. Again.”
    “You think it’s so goddamned easy, then you do it.”
    The log she’d been trying to move shot ten feet away from her without warning. Raphael put his hands on his hips. “There.”
    “Go to hell.”
    “Thanks. I’d rather stick around here on earth. Which means you need to try it again.”
    She was so tired. She’d never been so exhausted in all of her life, but she’d never admit it to him. It didn’t help that she got little sleep at night. It was the one time she allowed herself to grieve, and she spent most of her time in bed crying for Jake, crying for Will, which left only a few hours for sleeping.
    The first two days she was sure Will was there, answering her when she called out for him. But last night, there was nothing but silence. She’d held out hope that her dreams of him meant something, but she forced herself to accept the truth.
    Will was dead.
    Jake was more difficult. During the day, he kept himself shielded from her, but at night when he slept, he let his guard down. He cried for her in his sleep, smothering her with his fear and loneliness. She tried to answer him, to use their connection to give him comfort, but their connection had become one-way since the night her father changed the rules. All of his feelings flowed out, without her love and reassurance going back.
    He thought she’d forgotten him.
    In his sleep, he begged for her to come to him and save him. Even if she knew where he was, she couldn’t save him. If she couldn’t move a log ten feet, how would she defeat her father?
    Then there were the new dreams, a scene from the vision she’d received in Kansas City after her encounter with the crazy homeless man. It was only one part of the vision, but enough to frighten her. A valley lay below her with multiple fires spread across the landscape, and a voice tickled her ear. “ You are the destruction of the world .”
    If she weren’t so irritated, she would have laughed at the idea. There was little chance of her being the destruction of anything. In two days of practicing, she’d made little progress and Raphael had become more and more frustrated.
    “You need to focus. Point your energy to the log and push it with your mind.”
    “I thought you were going to teach me how to use other power sources.”
    He scowled, anger filling his eyes. “You have to learn how to use your own energy to do simple tasks without killing yourself. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can move on to bigger things. You can’t run until you learn to walk.”
    “I’d settle for learning to crawl,” she muttered.
    Raphael released a guttural growl. “If you refuse to take this seriously, then we might as well quit now.”
    She put her hand on her hip, her anger building. “I’m taking this seriously. I’m the one out here for hours on end trying to do stupid-ass shit like move a log two feet.”
    “Then quit talking about it and move it.”
    She took her brewing anger and focused the energy on the